LCROSS: 1 Hour to Impact

[astroron (Ron)]

When Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 impacted Jupiter in July 1994 there was so many different versions of what the impact would be, from nothing happening to large spots.
I was in the camp of nothing happening at all due to the size of Jupiter and the minuscule size of the Comet fragments
As it was it turned out to be beyond most peoples imagination and was one of the most memorable sights in my time doing Astronomy
That this impact didn't live up to peoples expectations just goes to show that nothing is certain in when it comes to doing experiments of this kind.
They may get lots of science out of the mission but unfortunately not much in the visible for us interested amateur astronomers and the general public

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

I think the NASA team have been watching too many "Deep Impact/Armageddon" type Hollywood representations and were expecting something more.......visible....

Pity.

Maybe they should surf to Anthony Wesley's website to see the results, won't be the first time

Cheers

Chris

[hayez]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LC...C_impacts.html (what nasa tell are telling us, it was only a few pixels wide)
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/lcross.html (View from a 200-inch (5.1-meter) Hale Telescope and its adaptive optics system - no plume)

[Clarry (Clayton)]

Quoted from HubbleSite web page. Either they hit a dry patch or the water theory doesn't hold water.

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made a series of observations immediately preceding and following the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Centaur rocket stage and shepherding spacecraft impacts at the lunar south pole, on October 9 at 7:31 and 7:35 a.m. EDT.
Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) were pointed just off the southern limb of the moon to look for a cloud of vaporized material blasted into space by the successive impacts of the rocket booster and spacecraft. The WFC3 images do not show any evidence for a temporary exosphere resulting from the impacts.
Hubble's ultraviolet sensitivity allowed astronomers to look specifically for hydroxyl (OH) that would have been produced by vaporized material from the impact. The STIS and WFC3 looked for emission from OH which would have formed if water molecules had been thrown into sunlight and broken apart by ultraviolet radiation into hydrogen and hydroxyl.
"A preliminary analysis of the STIS spectra do not show any clear evidence for hydroxyl, but further analysis is needed," said Hubble co-investigator Alex Storrs. The Hubble team plans on further analysis of their data."

[multiweb (Marc)]

If they wanted a major blast they should have got one of those firecrackers from Dan Akroid in conehead . Remember that movie scene in the stadium, with all those people with burnt faces looking up in awe, then... pause... big cheering.